by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

The typical student in the United States is awake for about 16 hours a day. School, including getting there and back, and the occasional after school activity, accounts for nearly half of those hours. The balance is meant for family, meals, volunteer commitments, part-time jobs, community sports leagues, church or synagogue, leisure reading and homework.

If that seems like a lot to squeeze into just eight waking hours a day, consider the following: adolescents are spending seven and a half of those hours connected to electronic media! This according to a new study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The explosion of multi-purpose cell phones (cameras, game-playing devices, Facebook interfaces), among other developments in the past decade, has dramatically increased such activities. Harry Potter and Twilight aside, these increases have come at the expense of leisure reading.

According to the Kaiser study, adolescents between the ages of eight and 18 average four and a half hours of television-watching daily and an additional two and a half hours listening to music. Of course unlike when we were teens, listening to music meant being holed up in our rooms with the stereo cranked up, today’s music listening often accompanies other activities like chores, reading, and homework.

Another two hours are dedicated to cell phones: text messaging now occupies nearly an hour and a half of each day, while talking on those phones just a half hour. Video games played either on their phone or on the computer accounts for over an hour a day, and at-home, non-school related computing another hour and a half.

Do the math: that amounts to 13 ½ hours, squeezed into less than eight hours thanks to multi-tasking that comes so easily to teenagers today. Back to that image of yourself as a teen, lying on your bed, eyes closed listening to albums through the headphones your parents made you wear rather than disturb the entire house. Today that scene—ear buds plugged into a phone, listening to music while texting friends, catching up on Facebook while finishing math homework. Don’t ask me how it’s possible…I still can’t concentrate on the reporter’s words while trying to read a chyron as it scrolls “breaking news” across the bottom of the TV screen.

I am not sure what message this really brings. I suspect I’m just the latest in 2,000 years worth of older folks worrying about how the newest generation can possibly keep up with the pace of life. But I do hope that college students (medical students in whose care I’ll someday be) are really able to learn their stuff, complete their assignments and retain everything, while connected to so many for so long in so many ways, while they meet the demands of schooling.